Revolution in Egypt – and the Hypocrisy of the US and the West

2.2.11

For the United States and other Western countries, the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (which threaten to spread to other countries, including Yemen and Algeria) are something of a nightmare. Just as the authorities in these countries are struggling — and failing — to cope with popular uprisings, so too the United States and other Western countries are rudderless when faced with an undefined enemy — and make no mistake about it, the people of foreign countries are the enemy when their revolts against dictatorship threaten Western interests.

Only the most perceptive people in the West realize that, for decades, the perceived threat of communism, and, in recent years, the perceived threat of Islamists, has led their governments to support the dictatorial regimes that are now being challenged or overwhelmed by ordinary people whose eruptions of revolutionary anger are largely spontaneous and leaderless, and, as such, cannot easily be suppressed.

What will happen next is unknown. It is no wonder that the West is getting jittery, but it is difficult to see how Western governments will be able to maintain their influence when the revolutionary movements know that, although they have been oppressed by their own rulers — kept in poverty, deprived of work, and often subjected to torture, arbitrary detention, disappearances, and extrajudicial execution — their rulers have largely been able to abuse them so thoroughly because of the backing of the West.

The horrors of the Cold War are behind us, but on the Islamist front, it is all too easy to see how the United States, in particular, enlisted the support of the dictatorial regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Morocco in its “War on Terror,” drawing on their expertise in torture to host secret torture prisons on behalf of the CIA, where dozens of men and boys — seized in other countries and subjected to “extraordinary rendition” — were delivered, some of whom have never been seen or heard from again.

It is also easy to see how numerous countries, including the U.K. and France, responded to the Islamic Salvation Front’s first-round electoral victory in Algeria in 1991 by backing a military takeover that led to an almost unspeakably horrendous civil war, while protecting Western interests in Algeria’s supplies of oil and gas, and how Libya — previously a pariah — was also drawn into the “War on Terror,” when Colonel Gaddafi, with his plenteous supplies of oil, also joined the Western alliance.

With Libya, the hypocrisy was laid bare — although few realize it — when political refugees to the U.K., whose claims for asylum had been accepted, were suddenly labeled as terrorist suspects and imprisoned, or held under control orders (a pernicious form of house arrest) without charge or trial, and on the basis of secret evidence, after Gaddafi became a British ally in 2005.

Although judges intervened independently to prevent the involuntary repatriation of these men, ruling that “diplomatic assurances,” which were supposed to guarantee humane treatment on their return, were fundamentally untrustworthy, the control orders against the men were only finally dropped in the last few years when the Gaddafi regime began a program of reconciliation with its former opponents.

The West’s hypocrisy in the “War on Terror” also included Tunisia and the brutal regime of President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali (whose fall is leading to hopes that the terrorist stigma attached to his former political opponents might now be exposed for what it was), and, of course, Syria, whose fearsome Mukhabarat (secret police) tortured at least nine CIA “ghost prisoners” in 2001 and 2002, even as Bush’s speechwriters were including the regime in an “axis of evil.” A few of these prisoners — who included teenagers rendered from Pakistan — have resurfaced (most notably, the Canadian citizen Maher Arar), but others remain unaccounted for.

Of all the allies in torture, however, Egypt was the most prominent, the final bloody destination for those seized in America’s first forays into “extraordinary rendition” under President Clinton, and the place where, in the “War on Terror,” an untold number of men were disappeared.

Just a few of these stories are known, but they expose the true horrors of America’s relationship with Egypt. One prominent victim is Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, seized on a bus in Pakistan, who was rendered to Egypt before being sent to Guantánamo (and released in January 2005). Providing a dark insight into why Hosni Mubarak’s decision to appoint intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as vice president on Saturday is the worst possible move for Egyptians seeking total regime change, the author and journalist Richard Neville, drawing on Habib’s memoir, reported:

Habib was interrogated by the country’s Intelligence Director, General Omar Suleiman … Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al-Qaeda. As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before 9/11, he was under suspicion. Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks … To loosen Habib’s tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib — and he did, with a vicious karate kick.

Another prominent torture victim is Abu Omar (Osama Mustafa Hassan Nasr), an Egyptian cleric who was brazenly kidnapped from a street in Milan in February 2003, by CIA operatives and their Italian counterparts. In November 2009, an Italian judge handed down, in absentia, a sentence of between five and eight years to 22 CIA agents and a U.S. Air Force colonel for their part in Abu Omar’s kidnap and rendition (and two Italian agents received three-year sentences), but not before Abu Omar had been imprisoned in Egypt for four years, and, during much of that time, subjected to torture.

The most significant story of all, however, is that of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan, which was closed down by the Taliban in 2000, when he refused to cooperate with Osama bin Laden. After his capture in December 2001 — in Afghanistan, or crossing the border into Pakistan — al-Libi was rendered to Egypt by the CIA, where, under torture, he falsely confessed that al-Qaeda representatives had been meeting Saddam Hussein to discuss the use of chemical and biological weapons. Despite the fact that al-Libi later recanted his false testimony, it was used by the United States to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, figuring prominently in Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. the month before.

After visits to other torture prisons run by or on behalf of the CIA, al-Libi was eventually returned to Libya, where he died in prison in May 2009, allegedly by committing suicide — although no one who knows anything about “suicides” in Libyan jails believed that particular story. His death was convenient for at least three countries — Libya itself, and the two countries responsible for the deadly lie about Iraq; namely, Egypt and the United States.

More than anything else, the story of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi defines the blood-soaked relationship between the Bush administration and the brutal regime of Hosni Mubarak, and if there is to be genuine change in Egypt and throughout the Middle East, then the Obama administration and other Western governments need to step back from supporting torturers or enlisting their torture assistance or making convenient arrangements with them to establish secret dungeons in their countries to pursue their own repulsive agendas.

A fine and timely piece of journalism Andy. I read your book ‘Battle of the Beanfield’, which features my good friend ‘Music’ Martin Wilks, and this article was sent to me by Anita Gwynn.
I will spread the word!

If you want to know where US learnt some of their torture techniques at Abu Ghraib they had plenty of practice at Arkansas State Pen (the source of my husband’s treatment as an NHS patient) look at history of Tucker Telephone on this link last paragraph… look on Arkansas Prison website there’s a big chunk of history missing… the US and UK govt had been complicit in torture for years and unethical experiments on prisoners against Nuremburg code… and never been held to account.. thousands dead and it all got covered up…I know it was going on for years after this as I was in touch with the families of prisoners…Clinton was govt of Arkansas when this was happening…http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=4923
Go back in history if you want to make your present cases stronger…there’s a long timeline…

A lot of US client states’ police and security apparatus have been trained in torture techniques by the good old CIA. Though I cannot quote source right now, I remember watching a BBC the documentary “The power of nightmares” which explained how these torture techniques taught by the CIA were used by Egyptian police to interrogate and humiliate Muslim Brotherhood members during Nassar and Sadat era. Amongst the reciepients of this degradation and humiliation was one Dr.Ayman al Zawahiri….who is now bin Laden’s no.2. Brutalising a person only serves to induce hatred and resentment and sometimes leading them extreme militancy beyond the purvey of their religious beliefs and moral ethics. Frankenstein’s monster syndrome I would call it…

Do you remember the Islamist revolution in Iran, when the Shah was toppeled over 30 years ago now? Many on the left welcomed it then, because it was a) a popular uprising and b) nothing seemed possibly worse than the Shah-regime.
So, fears about the uncertain outcome of a revolution in Egypt are not exactly unfounded.

Thank you, everybody. Some lovely supportive words there, and some great insights. Kamran, I had meant to mention torture and its effect on Ayman al-Zawahiri, but ran out of time! Thank you for mentioning it. Very important.

VP Suleiman, one of the worst of our torturers, just spent thirty minutes on state TV setting an elaborate trap for the pro-democracy protesters and Western governments now caught in their own contradictions.

This man is sly as well as wicked. Chalmers Johnson has warned of “blowback” for some time but this is another test for which I fear Obama is horribly unqualified and unprepared.

Hi everybody,
I`m very sorry to ask you this I wish it was a better day……
Can you Help in this…..?

3Fev10 2:00 AM

They start shooting. people with live amunitions……in the Heart of Cairo. The GVT of EGYPT released thugs, inmates with the help of secret police to chase and kill people in the Heart of Cairo in Liberation Square. (Most of Them are educated young poeple, even ladies are amomg them who want to be free to express themselves and free elections not rigged ones and free from a police state and military regime.

Only yesterday night more than 1500 injuries and 5 shot dead.
The Square is like an open Sky Hospital
and the Egyptian Army wich receives almost 2 Billions USD/year standing by not intervening.

Or the foreign office or the DOD and leave a Message by phone or call on your representative (SENAT and CONGRES)

Please call and leave a comment (For the President to Press to stop this bloosheed,) it is Free to STOP THIS…….the more people call ..they will do something……..and let anybody who has some Human Dignity…you know to call this number..or do something……

They blocked CNN, CNBC, and other chanels , Al Jazeera English and Arabic on Nilesat, Arabsat and hot bird(satellite) so we don`t see the killings of civilians

PLEASE
According to the UN report up to 300 has been killed since 25 Jan.

It look soon they will be no pictures…..cause they are clearing Reporters from the Ramses Hilton and all the building around the Liberation Square…..I have a suspicion and presentiment when no Camera is left of life Picture….the slaughter will begin …..in the Square….The apology about yesterday of the PM is a BS: while in the conference their attacks were live

[…] power to the recently appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman (the former head of intelligence, and the favorite torturer of both the United States and Mubarak himself), and spent some time discussing constitutional […]

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Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo, co-director, We Stand With Shaker. Also, singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers) and photographer. Email Andy Worthington